


with a rotten tongue

by theviolonist



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fuckery, Multi, The one where they all have dopplegangers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 08:22:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys each have a lookalike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Mirel Wagner's _No death_. Written for the 1D kinkmeme.

_i'll keep on loving  
'till the marrow dries from her bones  
no death  
can tear us apart_  
  
no death – mirel wagner  
  
1.  
  
Zayn loves being in One Direction, there's no denying that. He loves the lads like brothers, and he's fiercely, fervently happy to be part of  _this_ , the unity and the tightness and the craziness. Plus, he gets tail. Lots of it. He's not going to complain. (Also, the hair products. And the clothes. It's really the best gig  _ever_.)  
  
But he didn't know he had volunteered (though he didn't really volunteer for anything, it's more like he was chosen by the Simon Cowell Eye of Awesome) to be in a  _girl_ band, because, god, the  _drama_. There's so much of it it makes Zayn choke. Like, there's all this shit between Louis and Harry and Liam and Niall and Zayn wonders if he's the only one who's a little bit straight. Maybe being gay is like, a requirement to be in a boyband or something. He'll have to ask Simon.  
  
So, like, sometimes Zayn gets bored of watching Louis look hurt when Harry flirt with someone who is not him, which is about fifty percent of the time, and Liam looking at Niall like he's the Eighth World Wonder. The pining is making his head ache, seriously.  
  
Most of the time, like today, he goes to smoke a fag (yeah, he was supposed to quit, but whatever – besides, he's way too busy to get as much tail as he should if he wanted to stop smoking – gotta replace an addiction with another) behind the building, in the fresh, pining-less air.  
  
He likes America. He likes the long, straight roads and the smell of asphalt and the unrelenting sun. He likes the way people don't care and swear and scream, liberated, he likes their bared flesh and their insults. There's something dirty about America that he loves – the sand and the dust and the dirt that collects under his fingernails. He likes the way everything is  _too big_.  
  
The horizon presents him its long blue throat, and Zayn is breath-taken for a moment, eyes lost in the immensity that stretches before him, loud and brash and  _perfect_. His eyes catch on a billboard, a face, delicate and masculine, eyelashes lowered to graze the model's cheek. He can't look away.  
  
So he may be a bit gay, too.  
  
Of  _course_ , he can't have a moment of tranquility, which is why Niall choses this moment to run to him and lean against the wall next to him. They stay silent for a moment (Zayn treasures the moment, because Niall is  _never_  quiet), staring together at the billboard.  
  
Zayn feels deep and philosophical, so he says, "He's beautiful, isn't he?"  
  
Niall hms, apparently not feeling as philosophical as Zayn. Niall rarely feels philosophical anyway, unless it's about food. He has no appreciation for beauty, which is deplorable but, sadly, something Zayn cannot change.  
  
"It's a dude, though," he eventually says, which Zayn could've done without. Yes, thank you, he had noticed, he's not blind.  
  
Because he's a good friend and also because he doesn't like drama, he doesn't comment on the irony of  _him_  being the one to say that (because, hello, on a scale of one to ten, one being 'manly bro' and ten 'flaming homo' (and it rhymes, Zayn definitely is too awesome to exist), the way Liam and Niall behave with each other ranks a solid eleven, and let's not even talk about Harry and Louis).  
  
"It's beauty all the same," he says. He's really getting into it, and yeah, the model definitely looks fuckable with his cheekbones and his strong, muscled arms.  
  
Niall mms again, sounding profoundly uninterested. He cocks his head, as though considering Zayn's words. Zayn feels mildly proud of himself.  
  
And then Niall bursts out laughing.  
  
"Um," Zayn says. "So, this is random."  
  
"Are you -" Niall seems to be choking on his own tongue, but Zayn has the feeling that he's laughing at  _him_ , which, why, so he doesn't help him out. Let him die a ridiculous death. "Are you – are you  _serious_?" he asks, still laughing hysterically.  
  
"What are you taking about?" Zayn growls. He does  _not_  appreciate being laughed at, for the record.  
  
"This is – I was going to tell you -" he cackles madly.  
  
Zayn is not amused. He elbows him in the ribs. "Oy, come off it!"  
  
Niall giggles. "Sorry, sorry. Look at the billboard," he says, and seriously, couldn't he just come out with it? Niall and subtlety usually don't go so well together.  
  
But then he looks back at the billboard a little more closely, and –  _oh my god_.  
  
He runs inside, cheeks flaming, leaving Niall still laughing behind him.  
  
"This is  _not_  funny!" he yells at him, but it just makes Niall double up in laughter, so he gives up and tries not to give him to the urgent need to stomp his foot.  
  
Oh, god. The boys are never going to let him forget it.  
  
*  
  
The morning after, Louis bounces into the bus kitchen at the crack of dawn (not that he  _chose_  to wake up at this hour. He's crazy but not  _that_  crazy, thank you very much. It's just that management are cold-hearted sons of bitches who have no problem scheduling for  _every. minute._  of their twenty-hours-long days), his cell in one hand and a toothbrush in the other.  
  
"Sugarscape tweeted me," he says.  
  
The others don't really react. It's a fairly common occurrence – the girls at Sugarscape are famously obsessed with them and regularly tweet them, funny stuff, jabs at Harry's hair (Zayn wholehearteldy approves of that. It's beyond ridiculous) and the obligatory, "Your face x". This one seems to have Louis more excited than usual, though, and they perk up.  
  
Louis leers at Zayn. Zayn doesn't even blink – this too is a common occurrence.  
  
"Zayney darling," he starts, "remember the boy you were checking out yesterday?"  
  
Zayn winces. Apparently, the night didn't bring the amnesia he was hoping for.  
  
The boys are laughing and being generally silly, but he catches the end of Louis's grandiloquent speech. " - apparently you have a lookalike." He thrusts his phone under Zayn's nose, and Zayn just has the time to catch a picture of – well, himself – before having to duck because Louis is attempting to pinch his cheeks. "Isn't he gloriously handsome?" Louis coos.  
  
"Obviously," he says grandly, and oofs as Louis plops himself in his lap, maiden-style.  
  
"We have to meet him," Louis says, eyes shining.  
  
Zayn considers the idea for a second and concludes that a) it's Louis's idea, and therefore probably a bad idea, b)  _such_  a bad idea.  
  
On the other hand... there's a dude who looks like him (how cool is that?). And he could meet him. (He could even have _sex_  with  _himself_ , a sneaky little voice says at the back of his brain, but he makes it shut up.)  
  
"Yeah," he answers, pushing Louis off of his lap. "We should definitely meet him."  
  
*  
  
The guy's name is Antoine Larue, he's French, 23, a model and fucking gorgeous. Zayn's being totally objective when he says that, obviously. But seriously, he's  _fit_.  
  
He walks in with proud shoulders and dark eyes. His eyelashes are even longer than Zayn's, and he doesn't have Zayn's remaining teenage chubbiness in his cheeks and arms. Zayn feels like his skin is stretched taut over his bones. He offers him a cigarette.  
  
"I don't smoke," Antoine says, his voice silky and sharp. Zayn knows it's new, and hard, because Antoine's fingers twitch against the material of his pants. He feels a tug of  _want_  in his stomach.  
  
The boys pull him away to pester him, and Antoine follows them wordlessly, sometimes smiling sharp, lightning smiles. He looks cruel, Zayn thinks as he watches him walk away, long legs clad in black. He likes it.  
  
The afternoon passes in a blur. Antoine watches him from a corner of the room with hooded eyes. He answers the boy's questions with short, to-the-point answers, apparently oblivious to Harry's flirting and the way they're all draped around each other. When he laughs, his teeth show.  
  
They let him go when the night draws near. Zayn can see them out of the corner of his eye, and a poignant love twists his loins – Harry's hand fisted in Louis's T-shirt, head nuzzling his neck, and Liam's hand loosely curled around Niall's hip, the four of them laughing at something Zayn didn't hear. There are some things in Zayn's life that he's never going to regret, and this is one of them.  
  
The billboard is still here, visible from the window of his hotel room, and Zayn wonders why he hadn't seen it before. He feels the other slink behind him, silent footsteps, feline.  
  
"Nice picture," Zayn says.  
  
"Thank you," the other responds. When he leans against the window-frame, Zayn recognizes the ripple of his own body. Arousal shoots an arrow at his stomach.  
  
"How is it, then?" he asks, and turns around so they are close, too close. The heat Antoine's body gives off brushes on his torso.  
  
Antoine smiles like a tiger. "How is what? Looking like you, or my life?"  
  
Zayn smiles back. He can be like that, too. He knows the game by heart, as though he'd created it himself. He'll never not win.  
  
"Your life?"  
  
Antoine laughs. "It's a catwalk."  
  
Zayn hears the drugs and the rustling of fabric. His cock twitches in his pants. He shrugs. Lights another cigarette.  
  
"Want one?"  
  
Antoine nods, this time. Zayn watches him watch the cigarette, Adam's apple bobbing slightly, and imagines him walking down a runway, eyes heavily made up, long, confident strides.  
  
There's a thud when Antoine's body hits the wall. The third Zayn watches them from outside, eyelids lowered. Zayn catches Antoine's bottom lip between his lips and thinks,  _yes, yes_. The cigarette falls on the window-frame, unlit. Zayn tastes Antoine's spit and wonders if he tastes like him at all.  
  
When he lets him go, Antoine smirks at him. He pulls his shirt over his head.  
  
"Let's do this, then," he says, and Zayn pins his wrists to the wall and thinks,  _oh yeah_.  
  
Antoine licks a stripe down his torso, and Zayn shivers, a full-body shiver that shakes him like a hurricane. He looks down, and the other's eyes are here, looking at him, dark and intent, the same eyes he sees every morning when he looks in the mirror.  
  
"Fuck," he breathes, and he fists a hand in Antoine's hair, drags him up and kisses him, tongue and teeth, everything and _too much_ , good like a sin.  
  
He feels Antoine hardening against his thigh. They smirk against each other's mouth, perfectly symmetrical.  
  
"What do you want?" Antoine whispers between his lips, words lost in the hot furnace of his mouth, and no, this would be too simple.  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
Antoine looks at him for a second, really  _looks_  at him. He smirks.  
  
He slides to his knees. Zayn feels lucky. He presses his mouth to Zayn's crotch, mouth hot through his jeans. Zayn feels blessed.  
  
It's all very frantic after that, Antoine's nimble hands on his belt buckle, on his boxers, on his  _cock_ , and his mouth, hotwettight so very unfamiliar and  _yet_ , there's something, the shape of his lips and his sounds, vicious little moans Zayn _knows_ , and it's driving him crazy, crazy, mad. His eyelids fall open, but before falling into the darkness he sees his own face looking up at him, lips obscenely red, luscious, and the door that isn't quite shut. A frisson runs down his spine.  
  
Maybe Zayn has done that before (he won't tell – maybe he has, and maybe he hasn't), but he slides his hand into Antoine's hair and  _pulls_ , hard. Antoine moans, as though he was expecting it, and his teeth don't quite bare, but he slides his mouth down Zayn's cock quicker, one hand gripping his hip, hot and possessive, and the other nudging his balls. Zayn feels like he could die happy. He groans.  
  
"God -", he says, and then, "fuck, Antoine, I-"  
  
Antoine scrapes his teeth against the flushed skin, just a little, and it's all it takes for Zayn to come, no warning, just spilling down Antoine's throat in long, painful spurts, hands clutching the hair at Antoine's nape, just this bit of violence and the smirk curling at the edge of his mouth. And Antoine, the fucker, he takes it, smirking all along as he swallows, looking at Zayn from under his eyelashes.  
  
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand – he licks his lips (Zayn wants to kiss them bruised and bite them bloody, fucking  _ravage_  him, the bastard).  
  
"So what," he says, and his voice, silky and loud in the silent room, nearly makes Zayn jumps, "you gonna fuck me or what?"  
  
Zayn can't not reach and fist a hand in his hair again, shivering when he hears the french swear words that tumble out of Antoine's mouth, unrestrained and blessedly dirty. Zayn wants to fuck him through the mattress, so hard he won't be able to remember his name. He throws him on the bed. The third Zayn is still watching them, a silent, dark-eyed voyeur, smirk-adorned face on a background of stainless horizon.  
  
"You have no idea."  
  
There's something alien in his face as well, the slow rush of  _other_  under the overwhelming shout of  _same_ , Zayn thinks as he straddles him, thighs hot through the fabric. He kisses him like you would kiss a hurricane, unrestrained, not trying to silence his moans or to stop the madness. It feels better than anything that he's ever done, except maybe this time in London with Harry hot on his lips, whispering that nobody needs to know and then biting his skin to show everyone, as paradoxical as ever.  
  
Antoine is needy and insistent, pulse beating madly where Zayn's wrist is pressed against his chest. His eyelashes flutter, maybe a hundred, a thousand times a minute, a butterfly on steroids, and it wrenches awe from Zayn's stomach ( _how can he not look sweet, how, how, how_ ). But he doesn't, he doesn't look sweet, not an ounce, just rough and hard and cruel when he sucks Zayn's fingers in his mouth and licks them like they're a blade, lips bloody bloody bloody red, tongue rotten and unbelievably talented, whispering a low stream of  _fuckmefuckmefuckme_  that sounds like a curse.  
  
Zayn lets himself be taken by the violence that was hovering at the edges of his consciousness, waiting to be let in, and all of it unfurls in his body like a giant bird of prey. He shudders when the tips of the wings brush against his ribcage, and then  
  
then  
he bursts and pushes Antoine against the mattress and grinds his hips viciously into his and bites his lip bloody and pushes a hand over his mouth not to hear him talk ( _fuckmefuckmefuckme_ ) and tears his clothes off him does not look at the floor and the clothes strewn and littered as though a hurricane had put them there a hurricane this hurricane and he pushes fingers in one two three the blood beating at his temple beating beating his heart  
  
and then  
he swallows the muffled moan and tastes it on the tip of his tongue sweet acidic and he wrenches another one out another one another until they're all milked out the pain and the pleasure and his cock throbbing in his jeans chanting its own little lullaby of madness ( _fuckhimfuckhimfuckhimfuckhim_ ) pushing against the denim wanting to be inside in the hot tight wet similar and he feels burning on his back the gaze of the third of them light blue t-shirt and dark eyes dark eyes dark eyes  
  
 _Thump._  
  
the beating of his heart (but maybe it's the rain and maybe it's someone knocking on the door, knuckles rattling against the wood) sings some sort of tribal melody Zayn feels he ought to know (or Morse, maybe? It's a message?) and Antoine is whispering loud profanities under his hand, hot and wet with spit he doesn't stop can't he stop maybe him stop and Zayn hoists his knees up on his shoulders, the weight of it too much too much too much and he slides inside one swift movement  
  
cock hot and flushed with blood angry red (the exact replica caught between their stomachs)  
  
it must hurt he thinks cock only wet with spit and Antoine that winces under him and he feels stupidly elated jealously ecstatic but glorious glorious and Antoine feels glorious too he must with this rhythm and the loud smack of skin-skin hip-hip each time Zayn drives inside and opening his legs ( _moremoremore_ ) wanton it makes Zayn growl  
  
"Slut."  
  
under his breath like some kind of porn star and it feels so  _good_  to say that to himself and to see how beautiful he is like that open and wanting and blind with white-hot pleasure hands twisted in the sheets with prominent veins he knows by heart has traced himself thousands of times and the arch of his back and a name he doesn't have but could've had if he hadn't been him but the  _other_  what would it have taken for it to be different his mother would have slept with another man and he wouldn't be here he would be a model in Paris would it be so bad and he slams slams slams until he can't feel his bones and Antoine can't either (it was what he had promised after all)  
  
breathless  
  
head banging against the headboard maybe even blood from a crack in his skull who knows it could be that and it could be something else after all  
  
and  
spills  
lets loose and lets himself be shaken by the tidal wave fingers tightening and pumping Antoine's cock through a daze too rough wrong angle but it does it how wouldn't it and  
spills  
into the hot tightness no condom no anything no limit no skin even just the flesh their same similar brother flesh and with a rotten tongue (the gangrene that has climbed into his mouth when they kissed with sharp teeth and a dash of blood to make it – interesting) Zayn laps the last small hurt moans and whispers and prayers and insults and jeers and curses everything everything lets his body stutter to a halt and – fall  
  
(blink – hot – white – sharp elbow catching his flank and cock spurting white hot furious)  
  
They don't move for a while after that.  
  
Then Antoine smirks at him, low and mean, and kisses him revengefully. He doesn't say "thank you" (why would he?), just "worth leaving Paris for" and for some reason it sounds like an insult but Zayn just blinks and shows teeth, skinned of all his politeness and properness.  
  
The night creeps up on them, and they fall into a rumbling slumber, the night outside dark with a hitn of storm. The third Zayn has disappearing into the nothingness – nothing exists outside of this room, outside of their bodies.  
  
When Zayn wakes up the morning after, dried spunk sticking to his back, limbs tangled together with sleep, he doesn't find Antoine next to him in bed. He isn't surprised. He doesn't find his wallet, his phone or his laptop neither. He's surprised (Antoine doesn't need all that – Zayn guesses it's pure jubilant meanness and it pleases him, makes a chuckle rumble at the back of his throat). He rummages for a smoke, but the bastard has taken them too, with his clothes, apparently.  
  
For some reason, he finds this uproariously funny. Laughter rises up in his throat like bile, and he laughs for a long time, until his throat aches with it.  
  
The boys find him like that – naked and folded on himself, strings of laughter still hanging from his half-open mouth like pearls. Liam shakes his head in disbelief. Zayn sneaks a glance outside before leaving, and sees that the third Zayn is judging him too, his eyes back to their glassy black, as though nothing had happened the night before.  
  
He winks. The third Zayn doesn't return it.  



	2. Chapter 2

2.  
  
"Well," Louis says when they're all in the dressing room after their next show. Harry's arm is slung over his shoulders, but he doesn't lean into it as he often does, maybe too buzzed by the adreanlin, maybe something else.  
  
Niall's heels are pressed against Liam's thigh. Zayn watches them from the corner of his eye. Liam is tense, body taut like a piano wire, strangely poetic.  
  
"That was weird."  
  
He must be refering to Antoine, Liam thinks, and he throws a glance towards Zayn who doesn't move, doesn't flinch. He smiles a strange sort of cat smile he must be too young for. He laughs.  
  
Niall wriggles his toes, and it tears a peal of surprised laughter from Liam. "D'you reckon we have them, too?" he says, head comically tilted.  
  
Liam frowns. "What?"  
  
Niall makes his  _duh_  face at him. "Lookalikes. D'you reckon each of us has one?"  
  
Louis frowns too, as though he hadn't thought of it. He should've – it's his type of things to think about, but he's been busy lately, too caught up in his hopeless anger, the green wave that Liam knows rushes into him each time he sees someone touch Harry.  
  
"Maybe?"  
  
Liam waits for the inevitable 'genius idea'.  
  
"We should all look for them!" And… here it is. Time for Daddy Direction.  
  
"No."  
  
Louis raises his eyebrows at him, all cocky stubborness, already determined. "Why not?"  
  
Liam wants to point at Zayn and the bruises on his neck, say  _are you stupid or just blind?_  and  _we don't want this kind of trouble, we already have you_  but instead he says, "For starters, we don't have time. We've got a tour to focus on."  
  
It's true, they do. It's going good – better than Liam ever thought it would. He feels like he lives in a dream; the air is always foggy, clinging to his skin. The new smells linger on his nape and weigh over him.  
  
Louis grabs an apple in the fruit bowl and starts munching on it. "We could just post an ad in the paper or something."  
  
His eyes cloud over – Liam knows he remembers the thing he wrote to Harry. (The day Harry found out about it was a good one, though. They smiled at each other over the rims of their mugs, intimate and secretive, pushing the others out of the room.)  
  
Liam shrugs and vows not to do it – Louis will have forgotten about it in an hour, anyway. He turns around to tell Niall to keep quiet about it, but his eyes get caught on his mouth, red-open in laughter, and suddenly he doesn't know what to say anymore. His mouth is dry – God, when will this stop?  
  
He slides out of the room, mumbling something about a shower, and doesn't look back to see if someone is watching him leave.  
  
*  
  
Niall is sprawled on his bed when he gets out of the shower. He's used to it by now, so he doesn't jump (he smiles a little thinking about how he would've reacted to this kind of invasion of personal space two years ago) but his cock gives a twitch he tries to ignore at the appealing sight of his long body, relaxed and pliant on the sheets.  
  
"Oi," Niall says distractedly.  
  
"Hey."  
  
Normally, Niall would start talking immediately about American food or something funny a fan did or how Paul didn't let him leave the hotel to buy a pack of mints, really, what was going to happen anyway. Liam would smile and hum at all the right places and not say that going to a grocery store means almost certainly getting mobbed by crazy fangirls. It's maybe the best part of his day: listening to the low rumble of Niall's voice, guiltless, washed of all the stress and the tension he can't help feeling during the day. Sometimes he falls asleep with his head on Niall's knees and he wakes up to find him curled against his body, his hand resting on his stomach. He disentangles himself from the embrace as soon as his brain de-fogs and lets the guilt and shame in (he's not like that, he doesn't think, he doesn't know, god, he's not like that, it's all me), but he can never quite shake this intangible feeling of wholeness that always overwhelms him when he opens his eyes, Niall's breath hot in his neck.  
  
But Niall doesn't say anything this time. He's fidgeting with one of the strings of his hoodie, his eyes downcast, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.  
  
"You okay, mate?"  
  
Niall's head shoots up, and he waves a hand to dismiss Liam's concern. "Yeah, don't worry about it. Just -" he pauses, "Louis and Harry were arguing."  
  
Liam sighs. "Again?"  
  
"Yeah, man. I don't know what's going on."  
  
 _Don't you?_  Liam thinks, but he doesn't say it. (Does he see what's going on? Is it not obvious that they're in love but badly, a teenage, jealous love that does nothing but tear them apart? What does think - what does he believe?)  
  
"Don't worry," Liam says, bending to wrap Niall in a fluid embrace. Liam can't believe how accustomed he's grown to this, the easy familiarity of other bodies, he who wouldn't have touched someone else without explicit permission no longer than two years ago. It's one of the things he likes the most about them – how unafraid they are to embrace and hug and kiss, the tangle of limbs on the couch in the morning, when they really do form a single entity, indistinguishable from each other. "They'll get over it."  
  
Niall reclines on the bed, letting his head fall on the mattress with a soft thump. "I hope so."  
  
Suddenly Liam's really sleepy. His head is heavy and his hands are a bit numb – he yawns in his hand. Niall laughs quietly.  
  
"So I guess we're not going out and partying like animals tonight, eh?" he says, a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth.  
  
"No, sorry," Liam answers, more out of habit than anything else. He goes to lie on the bed next to Niall, and feels a little guilty, a little shameful to bask in his warmth like that, but it's late and he just doesn't have the heart to care.  
  
"You're a good friend… you know that, right?" he says, voice easy and malleable like a marshmallow. He half-wishes he could say 'I love you' as easily as Louis and Harry. Oh well. For all the good that does them, he thinks, a little revengefully (he can be mean too, he just decides not to be).  
  
"I love you too, mate," he hears Niall say.  
  
It's remote and warm; he falls asleep and tries not to think of Niall as he drifts into the peaceful darkness, but as usual, he fails.  
  
*  
  
The next morning is jumbled and rushed and just plain  _weird_. Harry and Louis are still angry at each other, which is never pleasant nor easy to deal with, seeing as they are sodding five-year-olds. Sometimes Liam kind of hates them for that, for making his life so fucking difficult, but his anger slides off him in waves, seamlessly. He's just not the type to hold a grudge, what can you do.  
  
Harry makes them all pancakes but they're not as good as usual and Louis's is a little bit burned. They don't really have time to eat them, so they mostly just try to cram as much as they can in their mouths and don't brush their teeth. Paul ushers them into the car, and it's only when they're all sprawled over each other in the backseat that Liam realizes that he doesn't know where they're going. Truly, this life exhausts him sometimes, more than the others – because he always wants to keep track of what's happening and at least pretend to be in control, whereas they're content with just going with the flow. They're  _easy_. He likes that about them.  
  
It turns out they're going to a film set of some sort, because apparently they're going to be in a series. It's exciting and fun and Liam vaguely remembers something like that in their schedule from a week or so ago, and the press release, and he wishes he'd remembered it was today – maybe he would have gotten more sleep, taken more care of his voice, tried to make the boys reconcile. It's just such a great experience, and he's always afraid that their fame won't last, that they'll lose all of this in a blink. Maybe it's their only chance at doing this, and if he want to milk every second, so sue him.  
  
Niall sends him an excited grin. He's excited about everything, really, so it isn't all that surprising, but Liam catches Harry and Louis out of the corner of his eye and apparently they've established some kind of truce because they're pointing excitedly at the filming gear on the side, and even Zayn is smiling, that little, secretive smile you only get to see when you know him well.  _My boys_ , Liam thinks – it soars and soars in chest and threatens to explode.  
  
"Boys," Liam says, but they're not looking at him, running around like kids. "Nevermind."  
  
He charms the bodyguards into letting him go buy them all tea with only Paul, arguing the high rate of celebrities in the neighbourhood and the civilians' no doubt chill policy about it (even though he doubts it – he just wants to breathe for a second).  
  
He ends up going a little further than planned, but he knows that they aren't scheduled to film before two p.m. due to production troubles, and he walks lazily, taking in the american landscape. He'd never thought he would get there someday, never thought  _they_  would, not even when they started getting famous. It floors him each day how unreal this all is – the tour-bus and the planes and the screaming crowds beneath them, singing every word along.  
  
He spots a coffee-shop that looks nice, with glass windows and a wooden counter that shines golden in the light. He wordlessly asks Paul if they can go in there and he nods. When Liam walks in, he's assaulted by a whiff of chocolate, and he hums lowly, savouring the scent.  
  
A laugh startles him out of his delight. "Haven't had chocolate in a long time, have you?"  
  
The voice is nice, sweet and musical, and Liam takes a second before he opens his eyes and smiles back. Absurdly, he hopes he hasn't been recognized, just this once.  
  
His "yeah" stays stuck in his throat when he opens his eyes only to see Niall smiling at him, wide and white. He splutters. The guy looks worried.  
  
"You okay, bro?"  
  
Obviously not recognized, then (but then, he was always the most inconspicuous of them – who wouldn't recognize Louis, suspender-wearing, crazy Louis, or Harry, with his swagger and his trademark curls, or even blond, Irish Niall and dark-skinned, mysterious Zayn?). Liam takes a second to breathe and risks a closer look. Now that he isn't blinded by the shock of this appearance, he remarks that a few details are different – the guy's teeth are regular Hollywood, straight and white, and he doesn't have Niall's accent but another that Liam can't recognize.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, sorry… Long day," he smiles, hoping Niall's lookalike is as easy-going as him.  
  
He seems to be, because he smiles again, and shit, no, Liam isn't having butterflies, that is ridiculous and it's so not the time to.  
  
"Do you have tea?" he blurts out.  
  
The guy laughs. "Brit, uh?"  
  
"If the accent wasn't obvious, yeah," Liam answers. "So, I have…" he rattles off the boy's order with their personal quirks (Harry, extra honey with a dash of cream; Louis, Yorkshire tea, of course; Niall,  _can you get, like, a muffin for me too? Oh, and a waffle? And a donut, I've heard they're better here_ ; Zayn, black tea). The guy keeps on smiling as he writes everything down, wide and honest.  
  
"Where's the accent from?" Liam hears himself ask, and urgh, no, he isn't doing that. He isn't. He's an adult, for god's sake.  
  
He feels Paul raise an eyebrow behind him (not in the plan, and Liam usually does everything according to plan, moreso than the others), but he doesn't say anything, which Liam is thankful for. At least management has done one thing right by getting them the best security in the UK.  
  
"Sweden," the guy answers easily, and he extends a hand, "I'm Mikhail."  
  
It feels strange to hear a stranger's name slip out of Niall's lips, but Liam shakes his hand anyway. "Nice to meet you. I'm Liam."  
  
There's no spark of recognition on Mikhail's face. It's truly a blessing that he doesn't seem to know them (but they aren't too famous here – almost no promo, their album isn't even out… and for some reason, Liam doubts that Mikhail has a tumblr). It could've been such a mess – there's no need to see Zayn to guess that meeting their lookalikes has nothing of a good idea but the name, especially with the confused feelings between all of them. God, he'd never thought being in a boyband would be so hard.  
  
But for some reason, he finds himself wishing that the water will take a little more time to boil, so that he can look at Mikhail's face and, for once, not feel guilty about it and the feelings it stirs in his belly.  
  
Mikhail flirts with him as he prepares their tea, easy banter and soft, lingering gaze. Liam finds himself responding to it, even if he doesn't want to, pulled in by the extraordinary similarity (he sees Niall when he blinks, and he lets himself forget that it isn't him, that it's  _someone else_  that could maybe love him). Liam feels a bit guilty for leading him on, but he doesn't have enough self-restraint to not do it, and the coffee-shop is almost empty and there's no danger, for once, there's no rush and no one to call for him, ask him to make a decision, no fans to reach out for him with outstretched hands as though they were  _expecting_  something from him that he's not sure he can give.  
  
Mikhail writes his number on one of the cups, loopy handwriting that isn't Niall's but has something of it. (Liam suddenly thinks that someone must have told him that he looks like Niall, at least once, or mistaken him for in the street – but maybe it just doesn't interest him, a silly boyband from the UK everyone is inexplicably crazy about, and for some reason relief pours in his chest, warm.) They have three days here before they head back to New York, but Liam swears to himself that he won't call, won't come back.  
  
He lets himself linger on and drinks in Mikhail's features avidly, the soft curve of his jaw and his laugh, raucous and buoyant, his very-blue eyes and milky skin and everything Liam puts in him that probably isn't there, the way Niall  _cares_ and  _enjoys_  and  _hurts_ , the way he always does everything so earnestly, pouring all his heart in it even if he knows he's going to get hurt. His fears. His quirks. The days they spend together, an easy arm thrown around each other's shoulders, Niall's nose nuzzling his neck, cold from the february air.  
  
He can never really believe that he's here, in this life, that he get to share this with Louis and Harry and Zayn and Niall who are all so wonderful and unquestionably deserve what they have. He sometimes wonders (before shows, when his stomach is – still – twisted and he feels nauseous, lingering in the dark for a few minutes before he steps on stage) what Simon thought when he put him in the band, if it was, "He has a good singing voice" or "We need someone people can relate to" or if he just  _did_  it the way Simon sometimes does things, on instinct, and then tells everyone he knew it all along because somehow it always works. Maybe, he sometimes thinks, and he closes his eyes to imagine it, a coin in Simon's hand and his voice saying,  _heads or tails_.  
  
Because if they – not just him – are here there's talent but there's also a lot of luck, and Liam doesn't want to forget that. Had something been different – something unimportant, Harry tripping on  _Isn't she lovely_  and coming home crying, not quite the man he is yet, if Louis's sea urchin injury had been too painful and the hospital people too slow, if Simon hadn't offered to take him, if Liam had sung  _What makes you beautiful_  on somebody's TV and they'd just turned it off, if Niall had been too homesick and Zayn too much of a bad dancer… There's a lot of luck, a lot of being in the right place at the right moment.  
  
And it all feels like a fantasy already, something out of a dream he'd wake up from with a smile on his mouth only to tumble down the stairs and get ready for school, that he feels like he can let himself get lost in it for a little while longer. He feels like he deserves five minutes of exchanging soft looks with the boy he likes, hands brushing, and if it isn't him well it's okay, he's okay with letting himself believe. It doesn't hurt anyone, except maybe him and it's worth it.  
  
"I hope you come back here soon," says Mikhail, who has a little sister named Una in Sweden and a dog and a house with clocks and modern paintings. His smile is soft. Liam lets the butterflies flutter wildly around his stomach. He hums.  
  
"Yeah, definitely," he lies.  
  
He gets told off for having been gone so long, and Paul too, but Paul just shrugs and says sorry and that it isn't started anyway, which it isn't. Liam gives the boys their tea and doesn't watch Niall lick the icing off his donut and says "Let's get to work, boys", and it's almost okay.  
  
*  
  
But he does come back. It's the afternoon before they leave Los Angeles. They have nothing to do – Harry and Louis are still pretending that they're not mad at each other because they're unable to keep their hands off each other, Zayn is outside doing something Liam would rather not know about (and nor would management, he thinks) and Niall is doing something that involves food and thus probably amounts to pornography, none of which Liam is really keen to join in right now (no, not even the pornography, because he's a responsible adult. … well. He could be persuaded.)  
  
So he goes outside to run and is it really his fault if he happens to end up in the area? It's not like going there (to grab an iced tea, of course, nothing else, maybe a muffin and something local in a bag for Niall) will actually hurt someone, and there's only Paul, he won't mind.  
  
He gestures at Paul and Paul smiles back at him, a little sad. Liam chooses not to think about it.  
  
He expected it, but his heart lurches in his chest when he sees (Niall) Mikhail as he walks in. Because he's honest, he wants to say,  _don't smile at me like that, I didn't come for you_ , and because he's a teenager, he says, "Hi" and smiles back.  
  
"Hi," says Mikhail flirtatiously, leaning his hip against the wooden counter. Liam sees in his eyes that he probably recognizes him now, but that he doesn't really care. He's grateful.  
  
Liam can't help but blush. He's never been good at that (and he's ashamed, god, he's not the type of person who  _does_ that, who leads a boy on and lets them think that…). For a second he resents that he's where he is,  _here_ , singing sugar pop songs with four guys trapped in the same golden lie, pretending to be nice and careful, verging on perfect, because he isn't perfect, he can't even pretend to be, he's a teenager and he fucks up every time he gets the chance, but that's what teenagers  _do_. But then he remembers what's great about being here, meeting the lads and getting on a plane to be greeted by screeching crowds, endless seas of nameless people that love them. You can't quite trump that, can you?  
  
"Hi," he repeats dumbly.   
  
"You need something?" asks Mikhail, still smiling, and Liam decides that he just doesn't care.  
  
"Yeah…" he says, dragging the word across his tongue. He watches as Mikhail flushes, exactly like Niall, tiny spots in his cheeks spreading to his neck and ears, lower. (It's a torture for Liam every time, when he laughs and the red wave disappears under his shirt and Liam wants to taste the milky skin so bad he has to grip the arms of his chair.) "Do you have something... something with chocolate?"  
  
Liam is hopeless at flirting, and this is honestly the farthest he can go without blushing so hard a tomato would mistake him for a relative. But he feels just this tiny bit reckless, emboldened by the sight of this boy before him, that he can flirt with and  _touch_  without it being  _more_ , without it risking to make the whole house of cards collapse – risking to set the dominos (and Liam sees them so clearly in his head, these vicious little black and white pieces falling one after the other).  
  
Mikhail smiles at him and leans over the counter, neck first, palm open – willing. Liam sometimes wishes he didn't know bodies so well, and in a way, he doesn't (because he hasn't  _touched_  so much as he has watched, every hour of every day, trying to understand a language that he doesn't quite get). "We have.." he casts a contemplative glance at the display of pastries near his right arm, and a chuckle tickles Liam's throat because he knows that he probably has all of them memorized, but he's not going to complain, "let's see.  _Eclairs_ , chocolate  _tartelette_ , muffins, truffles, pretty much anything you want, actually."  
  
He looks Liam right in the eye as he says it,  _anything you want_ , and Liam spares a second to wish, fervently, that it were true. He looks back, probably as dark (only he's untrue, but he's past caring, really, past being the  _sensible_  one, and there's anger and arousal spreading in his muscles, making him want to jump and trash something, kill someone).  
  
"Really?" he hears bleeding out of his lips. He doesn't look at Paul, who is probably watching him – doesn't look at the other customers, the baristas that seem to have stopped to stare at them, whispering, only at Niall, right in front of him, looking at him with a look that Liam's never seen on his face before, hungry and dark, that says,  _let's_.  
  
"Really," he repeats. It doesn't sound like words anymore, more like a sort of lyric to accompany the twin thrum of arousal in their bodies, and Liam  _wants_  so much that it's kind of like dying. He hates that he had to be that, there, and that he had to love it so much that he cares more about wrecking it than about his own freaking happiness.  
  
"Well, then," Liam says, and he gestures at Paul, I'll be in the back, wait for me or don't, I don't care, just don't come. He hears Paul sighing (another daddy figure looming over them, and he loves Paul, but he misses having the possibility of being young and free and wild, not  _doing_ the forbidden things but it being a possibility, an open path that he can take if he so pleases), but he doesn't care.  
  
Mikhail chuckles as he leads him to the back, and it's shy and nervous and hot – if it were any other circumstance, Liam would probably back out before anything happens not to hurt this beautiful boy, but it had to be too much someday, and this day is today.  
  
 _You're out of luck_ , he thinks as he pushes Mikhail – Niall – against the wall, eyes shining with something that isn't anger and that isn't lust but that is sweeter, deeper, and kisses him.  
  
He doesn't want this to go as Zayn would probably have it, fast and hurried and furious, a shove and a push, biting and groaning in each other's skin. If he wants a memory of Niall and him – even a fake memory, this pathetic fraud of a _moment_  – it won't be this. He wants it to be what it would be with Niall, slow and tender, dragged-out enough so that he can milk all the hesitant happiness out of it.  
  
Mikhail responds hesitantly to the kiss. Liam would've thought he would be angrier, more forceful, but he isn't, and they kiss languidly, Liam's tongue prodding Mikhail's mouth open and slowly licking the taste of coffee and sugar. He hums, a low sound that reverberates in both their throats. Mikhail moans.  
  
"Sorry," Liam laughs as he pulls back a little breathlessly, feeling mellow all of a sudden, strangely lose in his skin. "That was kind of abrupt."  
  
Mikhail blinks up at him – he's a little bit shorter, Niall's height by a few inches. Liam quietly hates himself for doing that to him. He brings his fingers to the sleeve of Liam's jumper and fidgets with it for a second. Liam looks at him and thinks, _Niall_ , his breath taken away, unable to formulate anything, dizzy with the force of his feelings.  
  
"It's okay," Mikhail says, tugging him forward. "I like you."  
  
Liam breaks – butterflies bleed out of his insides as they kiss, and scatter in the blue blue sky above them, only to be replaced by a million others, squirming, chanting an incessant loop of  _niallniallniallniall_.  
  
*  
  
It's the end of the afternoon when he comes back to the hotel. Paul follows him wordlessly and they part with curt nods as Liam reaches his room, swiping the key with a tired wrist. He's just so tired – he wants nothing more than lie down on his bed and sleep like a stone, forget all about if until it until tomorrow ( - about how Mikhail said, "Can I have your number?" when they stopped kissing and Liam pecked him on the lips and said "I'll be back tomorrow," even though he won't, how that must have sounded like textbook romance but is as dirty as love gets, how he can't deal, how he just can't deal anymore).  
  
But Niall bursts into the room and stops as he sees him, a grin spreading on his face.  _No_ , Liam thinks as he takes a step forward, and then,  _I love you_ , but he doesn't stop him.  
  
"Liam," he says excitedly, the words ready to spill from his lips – but then he stops, seemingly registering something on Liam's face, "are you okay?"  
  
Liam can't say no but he can't say yes either, so he doesn't say either, just nods, which could mean anything, really. Niall knows that, so he lowers himself to the bed and cuddles up next to him. The contact electrifies Liam.  
  
"Sleep," says Niall when they're lying intertwined on the bed, legs tangled, his body bleeding heat.  
  
Liam nods again. He keeps his eyes open the whole time, tense and stiff, unable to sleep.  



	3. Chapter 3

3.  
  
He's whistling when they find him.  
  
(It's the morning after the photos leaked. Harry goes out almost every night, eager to get lost in the bright bright lights of the cities of his dreams, but so far he'd always been careful – or maybe lucky – not to get caught doing whatever it is he does these nights. Louis doesn't even want to know. But on Tuesday he's on every first page of every fucking tabloid in America, big, garish titles that read "The British Invasion: Beware" or "Styles Gets Wild" or who knows which other disgusting pun they've come up with while poring over the pictures.  
  
The pictures. They're not the worst he could've done – but then, Harry's always been photogenic – but they're still a fucking big problem. Management has been yelling at him – at  _them_  – pretty much non-stop since they saw them, which was twenty-four hours ago and Louis is  _that_  far from snapping. If he wants to be yelled at, he has his mother for that.  
  
It's Harry, as beautiful as he always is, his mouth quirked in a small smile. His hand is on a girl's nape, and it looks like such an intimate gesture, it looks so  _private_  – it makes Louis want to retch. He knows it's just an act, because he knows Harry well enough, but as he watches Harry look so wonderfully genuine he wonders how many times he's lied to  _him_ , how many times he said things he didn't mean and didn't feel guilty in the slightest.  
  
The next photo is her straddling Harry's hips, and him laughing up at her, throat bared, his hands crawling up her sides. It just gets worse after that.)  
  
He's leaning against against one of the barriers that will be holding the fans back once they get there, in shorts and Ray-Bans, an ice-cream cone in one hand. He's smiling. The sun is high in the sky. He looks like he's waiting.  
  
They're walking, Louis talking to Harry in animated hand motions,  _how the fuck could you do that to us, to me, do you even realize_ , and Harry looking closed-off, hands thrust deep in his pockets. They probably wouldn't have noticed him if Harry hadn't stumbled just before him and knocked the ice-cream right out of his hands as he fell.  
  
"Oh my god," Harry apologises as he scrambles up to his knees, "I'm so sorry..."  
  
"Don't worry about it," the stranger answers. His voices surprises them – smooth and luscious like velvet, or maybe black chocolate.  
  
Louis begins to freak out a little inside (they don't need another article written about them because Harry will undoubtedly say something scandalous in the next twenty seconds – Liam's absence dumps all the responsibility on him, especially now), but the stranger looks friendly enough. He's kneeling – his face is still mostly hidden in his own shadow, but what makes Louis tick is that Harry – Harry is silent. It isn't normal. He should be apologizing in his lazy drawl, syllables meshing with each other in his mouth. Something is wrong here.  
  
That he knows him so well, after so little time, usually makes him happy, this strange sort of happiness that suffuses him and makes him smile like a dork, but today it only makes him angry. Angry at knowing Harry so much, so well, and still keep being hurt by all the stupid things he does. Angry at the stranger, with his ice-cream cone and his fucking sunglasses. Angry at himself. Angry at Harry. Angry at the world.  
  
But then they both stand up, and there are no sunglasses any more, and Louis gets why Harry isn't saying anything, because fuck, it's his face right there, staring back at him with a smug smirk, blue eyes alight and smiling. Fuck.  _Fuck_.   
  
"Hi," the stranger says, extending a hand. "Nice to meet you."  
  
Harry takes it first and shakes it a little hesitantly, and Louis wonders why the fuck all their lookalikes decided to flock over to America, as though they weren't having enough problems with one copy of each of them. He's angry, and he knows it's irrational, but it eats him and makes him want to die, or burst.  
  
"Louis Tomlinson," he eventually says as he reaches out to shake the stranger's hand. The stranger smiles (he clearly already knew that) and Harry looks over at him, looking surprised, but Louis hangs onto the other's hand, making it clear that he's expecting him to return the introduction.  
  
"Alright," he says, and he looks like Louis but  _fuck_ , there is something about him that gives Louis the fucking creeps. Maybe the fact that it's  _his face_  smiling back at him has something to do with it, though. "Nate Horton."  
  
They stand there for a second, watching each other without any pretence of discretion, Harry looking strangely inadequate in their middle. Louis feels selfishly happy about that. Let him feel lost, he thinks. Let him feel abandoned, for once, so it's not just me.  
  
"So, Nate," Harry – always the charmer – says after the more-or-less-awkward silence, "what brings you here?"  
  
It sets them all off, and soon they're laughing at the surreality of the situation, hands pressed hard against their stomachs, hanging onto each other's shoulders. It's a nervous laugh, shaking and jittery, but it feels nice anyway, needed. Nate looks slightly less enthusiastic about it, but Louis figures it's because he doesn't know them yet – directly, anyway.  
  
"Work," he says curtly when they're finished laughing, soft little giggles still escaping them once every so often.  
  
"What do you do?" Louis asks. He wonders how Zayn felt now that he's confronted to it, his face and his body leading another life he's not aware of, that he hasn't felt or danced or strutted or whatever it is Nate does, girlfriends he hasn't kissed, scars he didn't make. He wonders if he felt this same rush, the red-hot instinct of  _mine_ , but also the funny realization of "I hadn't seen before", the inside of his knees, his back, his nape. He wants to watch Nate enough to get his fill, he realizes, and it's strange, it's so strange, especially standing here in the middle of the street with the sun shining hard on them, probably working its burn under their skins.  
  
"I'm a tennisman," Nate says, smiling.  
  
"Really?" Harry says, and drops some names of famous tennismen to start the conversation. They get talking about tennis ("Very british sport," says Harry, almost serious, and the other laughs again, slowly, voice low). Louis stands there, just looking, a little bit too overwhelmed to make conversation and be as charming as witty as he should be. Harry is probably doing him a favor, knowingly, but Louis doesn't feel like thanking him, so he doesn't acknowledge it.  
  
The sun is dipping in the horizon when they finish the conversation. Louis isn't even sure what city they're in; they've moved to a bar and they're talking, words lazy in the mouths, tainted by the beer and the peanuts, salty and sweet. Harry is mumbling, even more than usual, and Louis almost forgets to be mad at him for a second, ready to relapse in this fucking crush that isn't a crush but that it would be too dangerous to call anything else. Louis thanks someone up there, maybe god, that it was a day off – he has too many feelings that he needs to stomach, hot streaks of images burning through his eyes and making him feel vague and queasy.  
  
"Probably time we go back to the hotel, hey, Haz?" he asks, and Harry shoots him a lightning-quick glance, looking fearful under the tiredness, like the minute they step out of there Louis will come back to being mad at him. Louis isn't even sure he feels awake enough to be angry, but he doesn't say anything.  
  
"Yeah," Harry says slowly, and then, more assured, like maybe he's decided something, "Yeah, okay."  
  
They both salute Nate, and it's weird, it's a little surreal, meeting your reflection and hanging out for a few hours in the low sun and then saying goodbye, ready to never meet again. Louis is a little relieved when Nate calls him as they prepare to leave.  
  
"Louis," he says. Louis is struck by how his voice sounds, like it was back when he didn't sing. It vibrates in his chest like a cello chord.  
  
"Yeah?" he asks, his voice not shaking. Harry sometimes says jokingly that he's the better actor out of all of them (but now the memory feels sour, tainted with Harry's betrayals).  
  
"Let's meet for a drink later this week, okay?" Nate says, his glass tumbling between his fingers, sharp bones colliding through the skin.  
  
Harry's eyes shoot open behind Louis, green like a snake's. He's on his guard, suddenly awake – and like Louis, because they rarely feel differently (or at least that's what Louis liked to believe until now), he knows that there's something wrong there, something in Nate's eyes that's all that Louis tries to avoid.  
  
"Okay," Louis says quietly. It doesn't resound in the room. Nate shoots him a small smile.  
  
They exchange numbers in tensed silence. Louis can feel Harry's body tense and stiff behind him, but he doesn't acknowledge it, doesn't do anything. He's tired of being the one who does things. Let him be afraid, for once. Let him.  
  
"Let's go," he says when they're finished, pressing his fingers at the small of Harry's back, commanding.  
  
Harry doesn't say anything. He lets his eyes fall back half-closed, ducks his head and lets Louis lead the way.  
  
*  
  
Back at the hotel, they undress silently in their room, not facing each other. Louis wishes the boys were still awake, so he could go to them and avoid being there. He feels like he's suffocating, alone with Harry in this room. He feels claustrophobic. (It's in moments like that that he hates himself for being weak, with something that resembles holy fervour.)  
  
"Are you going to go?" Harry asks, slipping into the bed, the sheets rustling around him. Louis turns to look at him and disgust hits him like a heavy wave, crashing in his loins – he hates everything about him, his curls and the look in his eyes when he asks a question, his lips when he mumbles.  
  
"Articulate, for God's sake," he hisses, voice tight. He can't keep it in – it's too late – he just doesn't care.  
  
Harry, because he's Harry, sees the danger in his eyes, and because he's Harry, doesn't stop, doesn't back down.  
  
"Are you?"  
  
Twenty seconds ago, Louis would have said no. He thought he'd take the number because who knows, it's always handy to have a lookalike if you need someone to help you sneak out or do a scandal, but it was a little germ of an idea at the back of his mind, nothing more. He thought Harry was enough, would always be enough. He was ready to believe every lie, every warped truth, everything.  
  
(But now his muscles are thrumming in his body, anger breathing fire in his lungs. If he were Zayn he would wrench a cigarette out of a pack and storm out, if he were Niall he would yell, yell until his throat ached, if he were Liam he would suffer quietly, curl up on himself and cry. But he's Louis and his jaw aches, he wants to throw something at the wall. He wants someone to hurt, someone that isn't him. He lets his fists clench at his sides. It's probably more reassuring than it should be.)  
  
He can't quite keep the sneer out of his voice as he answers, "Well now it's none of your business, is it?"  
  
He jams the lamp switch off and suddenly they're drowned in darkness. It's never been this silent before. Louis feels nausea pooling in his stomach, chest, pervading everything like a slimy wave. He screws his eyes shut and tries not to think of the time where they swore that they would never let anything tear them apart.  
  
*  
  
They meet in a bar downtown. Nate is already there when Louis arrives, bare-faced, chatting up a blonde girl by the bar. Louis looks at them with a sort of scientist's interest – the way he leans into her, heavy-lidded eyes, and her giggles, eyelashes lowered, catching the light. It seems to him that he's observing the mating ritual of the person he could've – should've – been, and he drinks it in, tries to take lessons. They say you can't fake attraction, but Louis knows that you can fake everything, given that you do it well enough. Look at Harry. Perfect fraud, the fucker.  
  
He approaches after he's watched them for a few minutes. "Hi," he says.  
  
It's a really strange to be there and feel like he's not the legitimate Louis Tomlinson (it already took so much time getting used to the fact that there is a legitimate Louis Tomlinson, to tell the truth). Nate takes a second to recognize him under the sunglasses and beanie, and sends the girl away with a whisper. She smiles again as she walks away.  
  
"Come on, get all that off," Nate laughs. "We're incognito here."  
  
They probably aren't – it's been a while since he's been incognito  _anywhere_ , to be honest, but Louis couldn't care less. He's growing tired of fame. It's too soon, and it's ungrateful, but it's true – so he gets his cap and sunglasses off with relief, mixed with something that looks like the thrill of danger. (What if there are photos? What if management hears about it? What if this lookalikes story blows up? What if – what if?)  
  
They talk quietly, their beers growing warm between their palms – Nate dropped out of uni a little while back to concentrate on professional tennis, where not too many people make fun of him for being a popstar's doppelganger ("But I swear, you've gotta stop getting famous, man. My manager is getting complaints – not everyone appreciates carrots being thrown on the court."). He and his girlfriend just broke up (Louis's reassured to see that she doesn't look anything like Eleanor when Nate shows him a picture). He's of Italian descent, likes cars and whisky, a  _real man_ , as he says jokingly. Louis tries not to squirm in his seat.  
  
There's nothing much to say about Louis – everyone in the world that watched TV in the past two years or is regularly in contact with other human beings knows who he is, what he wanted to be when he was a kid and that he likes girls who like carrots (if he was given access to a time machine, the first thing he'd do would be go back in time and fix this mess, because shit, talk about getting out of hand). Nate asks him a few questions, and Louis has trouble not likening that to an interview, a sick dream where a twin interviewer would ask him how the fuck he handles the screaming girls ("There's nothing to handle," Liam's voice says in his mind, almost automatic by now), smiling.  
  
It's nice, though. It's still a night out with what might become a friend in a bar where no one minds who he is or isn't, beer and tight cigarettes fumes. Louis lets Nate's voice lull him into a forgetful calm, quietness suffusing his body as the memories slip out of his body. He's hazed, and he thinks, idly, that if someone showed him a photograph of Harry, he probably wouldn't recognize him. It's the best he's felt in a while.  
  
"So," Nate starts – Louis is basking in this restful warmth, this could get better, "you ever banged a fangirl?"  
  
The question forces Louis out of his daze. "Sorry?," he splutters. The world feels cold around him all of a sudden, damp and unwelcoming. He should have known. (And to say that a few seconds ago he was thinking about confiding in him, telling him – but is it the truth, or just his own little delusion? Who cares now.)  
  
Nate laughs. Louis wonders if he's ever laughed like that, vulgar and brash, with his head thrown back, powerful neck showing veins. "Come on," he presses on, "you must've? All this fresh meat – you can't have passed up on that."  
  
Louis forces the nausea down (- half of them under  _sixteen_ , for God's sake) – his fingers tighten around the bottle. He's shaking, he remarks offhandedly. It's not very cold, though. It's not even the most horrible thing someone has said about him – about them. He should've learned, by now. He shouldn't care so much.  
  
"I don't think -"  
  
Nate smiles coldly. He's gross and disgusting but there's something about him that's pinning Louis to his seat, and it's more than just his face looking right at him, blue eyes (when have his eyes become so  _blue_?) cold like a frozen sea, like he's playing at being unsubtle. Louis understands masks – he's a master at them. (He sees  _cruelty_  – and the eyes say _don't leave_ and they don't talk about the consequences, even if they're here, hidden, stormy grey in the center of the pupils.)  
  
"You're not a pussy, are you?"  
  
His voice is like cold water dripping along Louis's back, like a shudder. He shakes his head no, smiles, no, of course not.  
  
"Not even two beers and you're insulting me, Nate? Way to be a good lookalike…" he tries to joke, but it feels strangled and not  _him_. He feels like he's suffocating; the leather under his thighs is hot, sticks to the back of his trousers with sweat.  
  
Nate laughs again, mouth open, and in his head Louis imagines him tight-lipped, looking at Louis with cold cold eyes.  _Come on_ , he's saying.  _You're not a pussy, are you?_  He looks vicious. Louis's blood is frozen in his veins, too much alcohol maybe, he should leave.  
  
"Just making sure," Nate says easily, and Louis has trouble connecting it to the rest of the conversation. He blinks owlishly. Nate laughs at him, laying at companionable hand on his shoulder. The heat seeps through Louis's T-shirt, but it burns.  
  
"I mean, with all this talk of you being a fag," he says, voice fake-warm, and Louis resists the urge to wince at the word, "I hope you still get some pussy. The fans sure are willing," he adds, leering.  
  
Louis shuts his eyes.  _Let it not mean what I think it means_ , he thinks, nausea rising in his throat once again.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asks. (But he knows, he knows, he knows.)  
  
Nate smiles. Louis decides that he hates his smiles, the way they're like a switch, on and off, cold and hot, the way they go from reptile to redneck and from idiotic to cruel. "Well, I gotta get  _something_  from being your lookalike, don't I? Otherwise it's more trouble than anything."  
  
And Louis doesn't think of himself as being particularly stupid, but suddenly it all makes sense, why this guy was there (he was probably following the tour, it's the off-season for tennis and they always have hoards of fans wherever they go), why he invited Louis here, and God, does he really...?  
  
"I -"  
  
He'll say it, he'll say  _you disgusting fuck_  and slam his beer down and leave. That's what a normal person would do. That's what anyone would do. That's what Louis would do, any day. He would leave. He would slam his beer down and leave. Now.  _Now_.  
  
But he doesn't. Nate looks at him from the other side of the table, cool eyes boring in Louis's pupils,  _leave if you want to_. But Louis knows what will happen if he leaves (god, when did this turn into hell, why did he come, why did he come, did no one tell him that curiosity killed the cat). He knows Nate will open his mouth and say, "What a fag," with this little fucking _sneer_ , and it might not lead anywhere, it might not come out of the room, but Louis can't. He can't leave a guy behind saying he's a... that can't happen.  
  
(That's a man that uses the fact that he looks like you to fuck your fans, Louis thinks, but he still can't extract himself from his chair, that's how fucked-up he is. He doesn't even know where all of this comes from, he just can't leave, so he doesn't, he stays in his seat with Nate looking at him, snake eyes shining.)  
  
"Yeah, you're right," Louis says. The words – and the matching smile on Nate's face – taste like defeat.  
  
"Good," Nate says, and he beckons two whispering girls that were looking at them over the brim of their glasses over. He smiles, like a shark. "Thank me later, bro."  
  
They fall into an easy rhythm of conversation, the girls giggling at Nate's jokes, but all Louis can do is watch the red skin of Nate's throat and think,  _I can't be like him_. He keeps rewinding it in his head, his own face looking at him, lips curled in disgust, eyes bovine and mean.  _You're not a pussy, right? You're not a fag?_  (That's the look that Louis imagined, when he thought about his mother, his fans, his sisters. That's the look he pasted on people in the street, and now it's there, on  _his_ traits, the hateful slurs coming out of  _his_  mouth, and it's so fucking  _real_...). He takes a sip of his beer, trying to ignore his skin and the itch that eats him from the inside, his Adam's apple trying to leap right out his throat.  
  
"I'm glad I met you," Nate says after downing a shot of tequila, one of the girls on his lap.  
  
Louis screws his face up in a smile. "Me too," he says,  _fake_  ringing shrilly in his head.  
  
That night, Louis fucks one of his fans. She's twenty-one and she's willing, more than willing really, sort of beautiful with her curly black hair and her heavy-lidded eyes, and Louis feels like retching with self-disgust.  
  
*  
  
The morning after starts at five with Paul ushering them in the tourbus, half-awake. Louis has distant memories of skin, staggering back to his room at three, reeking of sex and failure. He remembers seeing Harry's lying face in the dark, relaxed, and being torn between wanting to punch him and trail a finger along his cheek.  
  
"You okay?" Zayn asks, a cigarette cradled between his fingers. Sometimes Louis wishes he were Zayn. He feels like everything would be so much simpler (but then, it probably wouldn't).  
  
"Mm," Louis says. He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want to think about it.  
  
He doesn't even look at the other as he climbs into the bus, making a beeline for his bunk. He doesn't care about the bumps and the nausea – the only thing he wants is to pop a pill and sleep as much as he can. But apparently the universe is of the opinion that Louis's quota of chance and success needs to be balanced, because he hasn't closed his eyes for five minutes when he's roused by Liam's voice.  
  
"We're not finished with the photos, lads," Liam says apologetically as he stands up in front of them, most likely to start explaining to them management's plans for damage control, Daddy Direction as ever.  
  
Louis catches Harry out of the corner of his eye, looking stony and cold, and his headache pounds into his skull like thunder, sharp pangs of pain crossing his brain. He sits up, teeth clenched.  
  
"It's going to be alright," says Liam, sounding more fragile than he usually does. Louis doesn't notice.  
  
 _Is it_ , Louis thinks.  



End file.
